‘Hannibal’ Revival in Early ‘Conversations,’ Bryan Fuller Confirms

Both American Gods and the general ubiquity of Mads Mikkelsen have satiated our Hannibal hunger over the last year, but is a revival any closer? Maybe so, as creator Bryan Fuller reveals some very early “conversations” have begun, even if they don’t lead anywhere just yet.

Fuller has repeatedly stated that formal discussions couldn’t begin until Hannibal rights reverted back to executive producer Martha De Laurentiis this August. Well, August is officially here, and with it Fuller confirmed over Twitter that De Laurentiis has at least put out feelers:

I have conversations with Martha DeLaurentiis. I have conversations with Mads [Mikkelsen] and Hugh [Dancy]; we’re all excited about the prospect of returning to the story. There’re some hurdles to get through. The rights revert back to Martha in September, I believe, and then it’s a matter of: do we do it with Gaumont? Which would be the only way to do it if we wanted to use those characters.

Said rights still won’t include any Silence of the Lambs characters, but Fuller explained that at least part of his Season 4 plans would involve Katharine Isabelle’s Margot Verger:

‘There’s a whole storyline that I want to do with Katharine Isabelle’s character, Margot Verger, who now is the mother of the Verger heir and in control of the Verger meatpacking industry.’ Fuller says he wants Verger to be like a Joan Crawford at Pepsi, take-no-crap type of spokesperson. ‘I wanted her to humanize all the Verger meatpacking plants and turn them over to PETA-approved [authority]. That would definitely be marbled through the season, Margot Verger taking down the meat industry as a hot, powerful lesbian.’